Perseverance records the first ever sounds from Mars

The SuperCam instrument on the Perseverance rover. The red arrow indicates the microphone. It is only 3.4 cm long and weighs a mere 13 grams!  © NASA, JPL-Caltech    - Using a microphone developed in France, the Perseverance rover has recorded the first ever sounds from Mars audible to the human ear. By analysing these sounds, scientists have been able to find out more about the physical characteristics of the Martian atmosphere, and in particular about the speed of sound and its attenuation there. These findings show that robots equipped with microphones could in the future improve our understanding of planetary atmospheres. NASA's Perseverance rover, which has been surveying the surface of Mars since February 2021, has for the first time recorded the acoustic environment of the Red Planet. An international team 1 led by an academic at the University of Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier and including scientists from the CNRS and ISAE-SUPAERO, carried out an analysis of these sounds, which were obtained using the SuperCam instrument built in France under the authority of the French space agency CNES.